You Calling Me? [[Paused]]

[Molly Quincannon] [[WP right off the bat? I am ... vaguely terrified.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] Molly's 'digs' at the moment are a set of rooms on board the good ship Lafette, and Molly has been more or less staying in them of late. (When she does come out, it is with minor injuries - scratches from the ferrets, soldering iron burns, bruises on the knuckles ... there are reasons. When a ten-year-old girl whose Quiet has her believing that everyone needs healing whether or not they're actually injured or sick? It's a matter of self-defence to go out bearing at least minor wounds. If not, it's yeast infections, oily skin, and the potential for worse ... for what is cancer but an overabundance of life in a set of cells? But that's colour commentary.)

The room is relatively spacious, particularly for a battleship; Atlas knew Molly's needs in terms of living space and catered to them as best he could. So there's a comfy bed, a couple of armchairs, and a cage for two ferrets, with a rapidly expanding repeat version of the HabiTrail set up that she now calls Deep Roads Two-Point-Oh. It's mostly mellow wood with brass accents, the furniture, and the walls are wallpapered a deep red. It goes oddly with her Doctor Who bedspread and the collection of humourous coffee mugs, but it's home.

Currently, Molly's curled up on her bed, idly flipping through Popular Mechanics. She's got a few additions she wants to make on Zoing (her somewhat clunky but still functional coffee-maker-bot) and PM is always a good starting point.

[Molly Quincannon] [[Perc + Awareness 'cos the Seeking-Mistress is a lying liar who lies.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[E-en-gur-a] Molly's curled up on her bed. There's an article on AT&T. There's an article about Nuclear Alert Facilities. There's an article about Humdingers and Doodads. There's an article about Holocaust: Now. 10 Ways To Set The World On Fire. How To Make A Skin-Eating Robot (And How To Install Fool-Proof Failsafes). The magazine pages are the kind of thin too-fragile glossy that catch the light and fashion ghosts out've it -- see, there? Where the magazine's stapled together, where the pages wrinkle and curl? There's light. A little too much light, all told -- light-on-water, a taste in Molly's mouth that is un(no)familiar. Her head spins. Her heart kicks up. These are illusions (no they're not). This is a presence. This is a prickle-hello-don't-you-know-something's-up? Because something's up. Her Awareness keys so sharp that she can feel all the rotes she's done recently clinging to her skin and she can feel her resonance radiating like a hotspot from somewhere within herself and she can feel even ghost-resonances of people who walked the good ship La Fayette before she can feel the weight of time beginning to crack to stretch like hot rubber and thin and thin and thin. It doesn't stop; it becomes bearable, and there is nothing unusual at all, except for the knowledge - sure, certain - that she is alone on the ship when she shouldn't be (no girl, no Atlas, no anything). That she is not alone on the ship. That there is something in the shadows: a smell.

The ship rocks -- as if it'd been hit.

[E-en-gur-a] ooc: ahem. LaFette, la Fayette. *wave of hand*

[Molly Quincannon] Well, she was not alone on the ship to begin with: the girl cannot be released on an unsuspecting world in her condition, and Elizabeth will not leave without her, and Kim is working for a paycheque (Euthanatos, mercenaries? She still needs to have those drinks with Kim to get the skinny on that news flash) ... but this is different. This is familiar-and-not. This is a presence in the space that has nothing to do with ferrets in the Deep Roads 2.0.

She shuts the 'magazine' (and some of those articles were creepy as fuck; is that something she would ever do? Even if just to see if it was possible? No! ...maybe? Oh, shut up, Molly...) and stands ... and is thrown back onto the bed when the ship rocks. But is the being hit in her head, or is it real? Sometimes one's senses can't be trusted ... and sometimes they can, even if it doesn't mean what one might originally think.

Plus ... it's not her ship. She needs to go look. But first, there's a presence to address. "You're not one of Lucien's emissaries, are you?" It's not really a question. Then: "If I go and make sure someone didn't decide to play with the anchor and we didn't run into a bridge or something, will you still be here when I get back?" That is a question. "'Cos this is something I want to explore."

[E-en-gur-a] No! ...maybe? Oh, shut up, Molly...

Her thoughts are her own. Her thoughts are her own, but another thought sneaks in there, thief, sly, wearing her inner-monologue voice like a comfortable coat: How many times are you going to tell yourself to shut up, girl? Maybe this is why everybody else's always thinking it... Shut up... See, why bother?

This all feels real. The bed, the ship's stutter lurch -- it feels so real it feels slow. Time is always, all times are now, and Molly doesn't have vertigo or feel as if her actions are dragging, doesn't feel as if she's been transported to an alternate reality, but she just has a sense (stone [meet pit of stomach]) that things are overwhelmingly real right now. This might be what the Velveteen Rabbit felt like. Real. The magazine slips off her bed. The article it opens up to is the one on robots who eat skin: there's a picture of skin being peeled off of a terrified looking woman with black hair, square jaw, thick glasses, more than passingly familiar, but hey, that's a quick glimpse, the focus is a little bit off, and the real point of interest is the robot. Which is badass. Which has clearly been put together by someone who is cyberpunk Shadowrun obsessed.

If she's listening, she'll notice that her ferrets don't so much as skitter at the disturbance.

And she's probably listening really hard, isn't she? Because this might be an emissary from Lucien and there is some serious shit to do. There's no answer. Of course there's no answer.

The ship groans, and again, Molly can feel it move awkwardly under her feet -- not hard enough to throw her down, but it's scraping against something.

[Molly Quincannon] This? This is unnerving. But so very interesting. The out-of-focus picture gets a look, and ... well, not quite a dismissal (I haven't looked that way in a month and a half but let's face it, you miss the hair Oh, I do not! so you like looking like you did back in high school? COLLEGE, thank you) but then there's scraping (and the ferrets don't notice and yet)...

She shakes her head and says, "Okay, sneaking commentary aside, no one tells me to shut up. They just don't listen. If you have something to say, I am listening. Just don't destroy the Lafette. It's not mine. Atlas'll kill me if it's not in one piece when he gets back."

If he gets back.
WHEN. He. Gets. Back.

Then, after maybe a second in which curiosity wars with ... well, more and different curiosity, she makes a frustrated noise and exits her room (quarters, cabin, whatever), heading up on deck to see what the hell they've run into (or she has; whichever). Sure, she could access the Lafette's radar and sensory array, but that somehow feels like it would defeat the purpose, somehow. Some things, particularly when they are excessively real, have to be experienced directly.

[E-en-gur-a] Her inner monologue voice again -- whatever's wearing it is so comfortable. Whatever's wearing it might just steal her inner monologue voice for its very, very own forever and ever and ever, and maybe, maybe, if whatever's doing it is the kind of entity that visits other girls, the kind of entity that's not a one girl entity, maybe it'll use the voice she imagines she has (always, always different than what other people hear, no matter how many recordings of yourself you've heard) to torment some other sucker. For now, the inner-monologue that isn't hers/is hers:

He's not coming back. Ask his old crew. Ask his wife. Coming back isn't what Atlas does. Unless it's too late. Blog's sake, Moll. You're not a kid.

Molly opens the door to her room and heads up to the deck. As she's heading up to the deck, she takes a step, and sploosh! Water. There's a lot of water, seeping in from a break, somewhere, from, as a matter of fact, a room that's not on any of the schismatics, a room in the ship that shouldn't be there but is now, a room from which a throbbing sound is coming, something also familiar. It sounds like the Tardis. Like the sound effect of the Tardis separated from television and computer. The glass piping -- distinctive, Atlasian touch -- which lines the walls of the LaFette is glowing red.

If she continues up to the deck, she'll find there's resistance on the door (or hatch), but she can push it open if she really tries hard.

[Molly Quincannon] "I am going. To get. Him back."

That's to the inner monologue (yes, it's spoken out loud; there's no one to hear her isn't there? is there a scared, Quiet-riddled kid and two magi wondering what the hell you're on this time, 'cos it sure ain't caffeine? do you care? never have; not gonna start now. ...wait, he had a WIFE? How do I know he had a wife? Why didn't you think to ask? Well, that's back on the agenda for when he gets back Going in circles... Yeah, well, sometimes it's a circle in a spiral, like an ever-spinning wheel... and of course it's the Muppet version that goes through your head with the windmills of your mind, hmm? Gotta have something to tilt at.

The pipes get studied, touched carefully (in case they're hot), and then it's to the door. And yes, it gets shoved with all her strength and then some, because apparently, something doesn't want her out there. Or wants to make her work for it. Either way, there's bound to be something interesting on the other side. Plus there's the matter of the water; serious shit has gone down, and she wants to know what, from the outside, before she investigates why Atlas' petabyte-carrying data tubes are suddenly active, unbroken, and glowing danger-red. they called you Red, once. Yeah, but no one else knows that. not that this is 'no one else'...

[E-en-gur-a] The pipes aren't hot. They're cool enough to feel like a sticky kiss on Molly's fingertips. When she examines them, she'll see that her fingertips are stained, as if whatever's making that candy danger [Danger's like candy, lick it off your fingers -- an imperative. Her internal monoogue's getting kind of weird. Kind of not so much her.] red shine is seeping out of the glass, and once it's left the pipes, it's consistency of (what else?) clotting blood. The pipes that're broken have stayed broken. The pipes that aren't broken have stayed whole. They're just: glowing.

The door gives way when she shoves with all her strength. The door gives way, suddenly: a last breath. Then: the water comes in. This still feels real, but Molly knows that this isn't how it'd go down if this were real. If this were real the weight of the water coming from above might knock her out, maybe slam her into the wall, against the metal ladder she had to climb to get to it, might haul her into unconsciousness and then kill her while she was sleeping, long before she managed anything like a prayer or a curse. This water just: falls into the ship like an air bubble pushing through water, except the negative, right? But it does come fast -- it does come quick, and the door's not closing again. She can swim up, or she can let the current take her, or she can choose option C. Whatever the fuck that is.

[Molly Quincannon] This is a decision, and it's not an easy one. Her instinct is to swim, to fight; it always is. Stubborn as a brick, tenacious as a terrier, and frantic as a swarm of wasps, that's Molly. But something wants to take her somewhere.

Why can't I do both?
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveller...
I took the road less travelled by...

She swims up.

Yet knowing how way leads ever on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back...
...ever onward, Tall...

[Molly Quincannon] [[WP?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10

[Molly Quincannon] [[Stamina - Molly's fatal flaw.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 9

[E-en-gur-a] Molly swims up, the flotsam, jetsam of poetry buoying up her decision. And swimming up is difficult, but the drag passes her by, and her muscles do not ache, and she swims for quite a long time when she realizes she should be breathless, her chest should be screaming at her, her neck should be tense, her temples should be pounding just in case she hadn't received the memo: OXYGEN IS IMPORTANT. None of that's happening. She's holding her breath, a natural instinct, but her body's not screaming for oxygen, seems to be doing juuuust fine.

Another thing she'll notice, of course. The water tastes bad. Metallic. The water tastes like the lakefront smells sometimes on really, really, really hot days, like still water where mold burbles and bubbles, and if she opens her eyes, she'll notice this, too:

The ship is below her. The ship is drifting down. Whatever it hit isn't visible. Nothing's visible except brown-green below and brown-green above and then, because she is Aware, a current that feels like moonlight might were it solid and fashioned into a rope.

Ah, wait. There's another thing: over her head. (Or is that under? That's the way the ship is -- no; the ship is drifting to her right. That's down, right? Now there's some vertigo. Use what resources you may.) Little thing: body? Human-shaped, anyway, just hanging there, a darker shape in the water-murk, but it's not near the tingle of direction her Awareness gives her, it's off that moonlight-tickle of sensation.

[Molly Quincannon] Two roads again ... though perhaps one can be reclaimed, with the other.

To leave any man behind is ... morally unconscionable.

And that's Solomon's voice; it is a thing she believes, but she would not generally phrase it quite that way. 'It's a sucky thing to do' would be more Molly's way of phrasing it. What is it? Who is it? She was alone on the Lafette (and why was she alone on a ship that should have had at least three more people on it? Ah, and one was a little body indeed).

Oxygen apparently not being a problem, she takes a moment. Two roads again.

If oxygen isn't a problem for me, is it a problem for this ... thing?
If you don't look, you'll never find out.
And what if I don't find out about the other thing?
That might be a person that needs help!
And you're all alone.
.........yes.
What if you're supposed to be, right now?
And if it's someone in trouble? If I leave them to stay in trouble? Can I live with that?
Can you live with yourself, you mean? Just with yourself?
Done it before... Thought that time was done.

For right now, she's going in neither direction. She's keeping an eye, either the two in the glasses (Am I even still wearing them?) or the third, the Aware one, on both bits and pieces. Anything that Other that is wearing her inner monologue wants to throw in at this point ... well, she's curious about that too. Since she's in no danger of drowning, she can do something she's been trying to learn how to do for awhile now - take a minute and analyse. It's what she's good at ... theoretically.

[E-en-gur-a] The person -- woman, maybe? There's something in the line of the hips, the shape of the head relative to the shoulders -- isn't struggling. Very much. Molly may even think that they, whoever they were, are already past tense, until her arms reach up, a feeble spasm, too directed to be death throes. Molly's Awareness scrapes against it and what she feels is [void (hungry)] emptiness, but a hungry sort of emptiness, undirected but dangerous insofar as it would be easy to accidentally fall into it (dark) just to see what all that dark's hiding (lots). Nothing malicious. Nothing tainted. Just a human-shaped thing like a black hole. Dense with nothing.

The gleam of direction is a thing in motion -- it's moving into the future: she's looking at the present. And it fades.

The Thing in her head doesn't seem to have anything to add while she takes stock of the situation, while she studies the two roads, makes them into two roads, thinks about morals and suck and unconscionable and Solomon's voice intrudes. And then, Molly thinks, What time is done? And then, Molly thinks, What does that mean, anyway? Hell, they say that I go looking for trouble, but is it my fault that trouble's always there to find? And let's be honest, guys. Trouble finds me. I keep trouble from finding you. You are full of shit, Moll. That might be a person that needs help. But hey, yeah, why not just hang around thinking about it? That's what Chuck would've done, right? ...This has GOT to be a test. I'm good at tests... But by Kibo's shaven nuts, I'm going to do it because it's right. Whatever. You can't even stay with yourself. Why would anyone else stay with you? Sure ain't your looks. Hey, my glasses are gone -- they are, she'll've noticed, suspended a few feet away from her, I'm now magically hot.

Speaking of hot, the water's a little warm. Like a bath. Just the right temperature.

[Molly Quincannon] Oh, eff-eff-ess, spare me the trolling. Lack of glasses has nothing to do with my plain-Jane looks. I am nerdbomb, hear me geek.
this does have to be a test. those are nerves you don't scrape anymore. there are plently willing to do that for you.
I have a cute grin. That's enough. I am what I am. Is this the time for introspection?
when else do you ever have introspection?

Undirected but dangerous, human-shaped thing like a black hole, dense with ... nothing. No. Molly doesn't want nothing. She wants something. And being twitted about hanging around thinking about it
Not what Chuck would do; what ISRAEL would do. Solomon, too. They at least take a minute to plan for something before diving into it...
unlike some people we know, ms geronimooooooo...
It worked, didn't it?
just urges her to get moving. Person-shaped thing holds a black hole dense with nothing; she wants something. Thus she moves on down (or rather, up) the road. She's had a chance at turning towards darkness before. She didn't take it then. Maybe it doesn't seem dangerous, but she sure as hell isn't taking darkness and nothing over Awareness and light now.

[Molly Quincannon] (And yes, she grabs her glasses and takes them along for the ride. They are hers.)

[Molly Quincannon] [[WP]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[E-en-gur-a] Dude. You're not always going to get a snappy comeback, you know. Hey, plucky comic relief never says die. You think you're pluck? I note you don't argue the 'comic relief' part. I just want you to laugh or maybe and the voice isn't really hers any longer, it's a man's voice, older, familiar as her own bones, made unfamiliar through distance no put that down. Don't touch my tools.

There's disappointment in that voice. Not purposeful, not directed, just heavy as a lead weight, just baffled, like the speaker can't comprehend where he went so wrong, why he got so unlucky, why the short end of the daughter stick is the one he seemed to pull, what is it, some kind of joke? He's not even trying to heap this disappointment on her head, that voice. He's just wondering why him and trying to do his best.

No, princess, I don't want your help. A word'll be a telling slip: want, instead of need. And then, internal monologue is all her again, because her body is finally beginning to strain against the strange element she finds herself in, she's finally beginning to feel a little taller as she follows the moonwashed radiance of something bright, Look, Molly. Why are you thinking about Israel and Solomon and Chuck anyway? Because they're here for right now? Because in case you didn't notice I look up to Israel and Solomon? Don't ask me about Chuck. I'm still pissed. Really? Sure I'm not putting words into your head there Red.

Hey, all that swimming's not for nothing. Ahoy, up ahead! A submarine. Yes, damn. A yellow submarine. Upon closer inspection, it's a submarine made out of river-reeds -- a basket submarine; intricate, unravelling, and inside it: Some Thing. There's the entrance.

There's a place where it's coming apart -- just there, something bright purple and copper caught in the reed-edges, something tiny, too tiny to really make out: looks like something Atlas'd have or some cigarette lighter bought off've etsy by a would-be steampunker or something, maybe, maybe.

[Molly Quincannon] ...................
oh snap...
I was in New York City when the Towers went down. You never called the hotline to see if I was even still alive. I CHECKED. So I'll pick up whatever tools I damn well please. Always have, always will.
oh goodie we have fission...

Moving on from that to Israel and Solomon seems ... natural, somewhat. A good progression. The people we love and respect, and those who love and respect us back (in their own entirely bizarre ways, in some cases), are always with us. So sayeth the Nerdbomb, so sayeth the Will...
AND YES I AM STILL PISSED AND GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE PLATYPUS-FISTING HYPOCRITE AND--
in the tooooooooown where I was boooooorn
Oh great.
lived a maaaaaaaaaan who sailed the seeeeeeeeeeas...
That's going to be stuck in my head for a week...

Knocking is polite, but at this point, it's less a request than a warning: 'I am coming in now, just to let you know'. So, after a 'shave-and-a-haircut' knock on the reeds of the hull, she checks out the 'entrance' and the thing too tiny to make out; carefully, as she doesn't want to take the whole ship apart, but ... well. Shiny thing that she might buy off Etsy. Is it a latch? If so, it gets used. If not, she investigates before seeking another way in.

[E-en-gur-a] You ever think maybe you're nothing but the sum of your memories? That maybe your memories are keeping you in? The Thing wearing Molly's internal monologue sounds conversational. Which is to say, Molly's thought-voice sounds conversational, sounds inviting, and the river reeds are sharp, sort of nip at her fingers, are not pliant as they should be if they were still growing. They were dried then crafted into this yellow monstrosity, painted over, except where she can see the paint flaking, the natural color of the reeds still seems to be like so much honey. The bright thing caught in the unravelling part of the hull - a flashdrive. Steampunkified, sure. But unmistakably a flashdrive.

Beyond the shiny thing is a whole lot of you-can't-see-anything-here darkness. Her ears might pick up the sounds of: conversation, an echoing din; chaos. Distant. Mood not able to be ascertained. The entrance is a reed-made door and a reed-made wheel to turn to unlock the reed-made submarine. The knock sounds brittle, underwater sound, has an after-effect echo, and nobody responds. Got a Powerful Curiousity, something says, probably the same Thing that's been there all along, and it sounds like it's coming outside of her this time, sounds like a man's voice in a language that isn't English.

A moment's thought will tell her it's not. It's a code she's cracked before, something scraped together out of Navajo and Sanskrit. It's not really the kind of thing anybody should be able to speak aloud, and it's not that easy to think in, either.

Do you know what I'm wondering?

[Molly Quincannon] What Molly fires back at the Thing wearing Molly's internal monologue doesn't get words, at first. It gets a scene, an image, held fast in that memory of hers, the one that forgets nothing, ever. It goes thusly:

A basement. A prison. A torture chamber. Molly twitches, writhes, but does not scream. She would, but she strained her larynx past viable use hours ago. The sense-memory that goes with it is pain, near-insupportable pain...
And she remembers other times that she has strived past situations that seemed hopeless, that seemed insupportable, seemed fit to tear her down and unmake her.
And she remembers the good that she has done, does every day, will continue to do.
And she remembers love, and friendship, and all those other things that make life worth living.
But most of all, she remembers that with all of that, from all of that, comes strength.

If that can come from being the sum of my memories? Then I think I'm pretty awesome. Room for improvement? Sure. But maybe that just means I need more experiences, more memories, to build from.

(All the same, there are two snippets of song, contradicting a bit [but also not], still summing up to be ... well, her.

If I hadn't made me, I'd have fallen apart by now.
I won't let them make me; It's more than I can allow.

if we were our nametags
if we were our rejections
if we were our outcomes i'd be joining you

No, that code is not easy to think in, but analysis of code is one of her specialities, and being able to hold it in her head while she deciphers it helps.

Well, sure, Brain, but where are we going to get a trained octopus at this time of night?
Which is to say, no, but I'd like to. What are you wondering?

[Molly Quincannon] [[This just gets harder and harder, no?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 8)

[E-en-gur-a] There is progression there: from one of her blackest memories -- the one that, hey, let's be straight, transfigures her nights into very, very bad nights so that when she wakes her spine aches and her mouth is dry and there's terror and a will to shake out've her body and maybe despair and maybe a whole lot of nothing, because that's what that memory's given her, that memory she dredges up when she looks into the dark, when the noise shapes into the sound of torment (torture [is just pain. Not unthinking pain all the time, but pain, and then unthinking, losing yourself, losing, just more, more pain and waiting for something worse than pain, there're things so bad, Molly baby, things so bad, you've looked at them and they've looked at you and they still want you your memory carries them baby you're keeping them real you get that don't you]). And then: the better memories -- and yes; it's hard. These things are always hard, but her will, just now, is strong and certain and it dredges her all the way to strength tooled toward hope, toward loving, living, experience.

The Thing wearing her internal monologue sounds snide, petty. Touché. But hey, Molly, it's not like you've ever forgotten a single word anyone's ever told you, a single code you've ever seen (unless maybe your head's been fucked with [Israel? Solomon? Who's to say? They've touched you there before, right? They're kind of set in their ways, aren't they? Have you ever seen them back down? That's a good thing to copycat isn't it? Not backing down? When've you backed down? I don't even remember, princess.] and wow caffeine rush. Why don't you hallucinate some coffee? (Don't worry, you know this is just more fucked up Chicago shit. This isn't a hallucination.)

The flashdrive is wrenchable, is grabbable, and it smoulders in her palm like a star, and then cools. The entrance to the reed-submarine is easy to open once she tries. Maybe she gets the feeling that a lot of her strength -- more strength, physical, than she usually has -- went into turning that wheel, but maybe not: it's easy.

This is what I'm wondering. Don't you think maybe there's something wrong with your eyes right now if you're so big on really getting a closer look.

And through the entrance is -- well, it's not dark. Moonwashed, again, and in all that moonwashed light, that light which isn't really light, just what she's Aware of with her third eye, just a sense-beyond-her-usual-sense, in all of that is a hall. Sure, it looks like it could belong to a submarine, maybe. There's a little ladder she'd have to climb down and everything, and the submarine's made out've reeds, so it's probably full of water, nothing weird is happening there (except for the weirdness). The interior looks reed-woven, too. And like it goes for a long, long time.

[Molly Quincannon] When the mention of who has touched her mind before comes up, it's not Israel
just to knock me out; someone like her would have eradicated the memories that meant to destroy me if she could
or Solomon
he has never been in my head; just crawling all over my wards and he could have asked but I can't hold that against him; I'm bad at asking to do things too
but another
Ashley; Ashley's Hunger dulling my resonance, riding my views of elsewhere, elsewhen, and I asked her to but never again - I will smack her silly before her mind touches mine again
but through it all, it's a certain letting go; sure, maybe someone has, somewhere along the line. She trusts. She doesn't forget, but that doesn't mean she can't move on...

Speaking of moving on, does she think that there's something wrong with her eyes? Well, she's not wearing her glasses; they're still in her hand (but then how did she see the flash drive? She's blind as a bat without them ... normally). She holds up the hand in which they're held, her glasses (worn since she was five years old and a kindergarten teacher happened to notice that little Molly's hand-eye coordination wasn't for shit and an eye chart in the nurse's office did the rest). She doesn't put them on, though. She doesn't go down the corridor yet, either. She's thinking.

I'm thinking that, though blind, I can still see just fine. Unless I'm not looking the right way. But what's the 'right' way? Is there one? Or is there just ... thinking, and letting the chips fall where they may? I tend to think the latter, but you knew that, didn't you? And yes, she's addressing the Thing now, not treating it like internal monologue. It's been you whispering over my shoulder for nearly ten years. You're the pixel ghost. And if you are ... well. Then maybe it's time to take another look.

It's trust. It comes hard, seeing as she's trusting a voice that has been snide and petty and pinking every sore spot she has, but it has come at stranger times, trust
and you've been burned
and she closes her eyes, shoves everything else away except what that voice is trying to tell her and whatever this 'weird'-feeling thing is in front of her (the benefits of being able to manage intense concentration, no matter how frantic one seems) and then opens her eyes again and looks again.

Calm down, this voice said once. Time to try that again.

[Molly Quincannon] [[So much pressing my luck... WP]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Arete!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9

[E-en-gur-a] eradicated the memories that meant to destroy me if she could;
Yeah well. Thought Memories + You = Awesome. You want her to what save you from yourself?
but I can't hold that against him; I'm bad at asking to do things too
Sure you don't mean you're bad at asking, period? You know the questions you've been asking here. What, did you pull them out of a Disney movie?
I will smack her silly before her mind touches mine again
Potato face, tell me why

The Thing chuckles. The sound is: copper and glass, spice and clay, masculine, not unkind. The sound is: a real sound, not in her head. The sound is: mocking, and beneath the mockery, just just discernable, something that might be the color of concern. Pixel ghost's just a convenience, darling, for a brief second, the voice is a loathed teachers, one who shared the local opinion that Molly Quincannon was a mouthy smartass (probable) dyke and if she got her head kicked in well noone would be able to say she didn't deserve it. You calling me? And that's surprise.

And the surprise is followed by, You are. But yeah, I'm thinking that you CAN see just fine. Would sure be nice if you tried to. For you, anyway.

Molly opens her eyes and looks again, but though the let's call it for now pixel ghost seems to be addressing her more directly (seems to be, seems to be, seemings lie, don't they?), she doesn't see any change in her surroundings at all. Instead, this: feels like a hand's squeezing some part of her [Awake] and making it pump. Then stopping: muscle dead. Limb atrophying.

[Molly Quincannon] Stay with this stay with this stay with this...
If a man (or a woman) would rend anothers passions, let him be as one torn by wild dogs. For passions are the seat of the Self, and if they bleed, so too does the soul. (The Code, of course. That's in response to the first. That's all the answer it needs. If Israel had offered, she would have declined. If Israel had done it and she'd ever found out... Well. There would have been a conversation. She tries to avoid the healing because she wants the experience of the pain--
orly?
--and she does not ask because she wants the experience of doing it--
srsly?
...and she wants to be the hero once in awhile...
warmer...
Because I have been alone too long and lost too much and I have been afraid--
A fool feels no fear; a Sleeper remains shackled by it; a Master trancends it, yet recalls its wisdom. It is good to be afraid: It is folly to bow to terror...

Is this what she needs to do?
Ah, need. Is it so hard to need?
Yes. Yes, it is. But it is folly to bow to terror. Bridget Quincannon would have raised a fool if she could. Molly had refused to be one. She wasn't about to start now.

I will tell you why - because if she could, she would just MAKE everything and everyone run the way she wants them to. Been there. Done that. Also been to the place where people try to teach with reason, not force and harsh words. That way works better - or haven't you noticed?

And maybe this Other (but not Other; part of her) has noticed. The changes. The caution, learned from reason, where browbeating only had her rushing in where angels feared to tread all the faster.

And then? Atrophy. WHAT THE FUCK?
y so surprised? you've been here before.
No; that was a wall. This is like sleeping on my arm wrong. Or worse.
so figure it out.

After a moment (every slight every grudge ... Humor cooleth blood: Wrath spilleth it...) ...she laughs. Way down deep, she laughs - maybe out loud (cloud of bubbles, perhaps), maybe not. And she relaxes with it, as she always does. Do I sound that bad? Really? But ... yes. Yes, I am calling you. I wanted to be worthy before I did, but ... maybe that's in the eye of the beholder. And then, after a pause, I miss you when you're quiet. In all senses.

It's an admission; of course it is. It's also a breather. Perspective, maybe, might help. And if that doesn't help, when she looks again? Well, then she'll have to make a choice - in? Or ... elsewhere.

[E-en-gur-a] Absence of sound. Silence. While Molly speaks to the pixel ghost who she's calling, who she wants to be worthy of, who she misses when its quiet, in all senses. Absence. Absolute absence. And then a moment ticks past, and she laughs at herself, and the water rushes into her lungs, her chest begins to burn, but there's no cramping, no pain beyond that discomfort, the discomfort of something new and untried. Her laughter is joined by the Thing's, after a moment. The Thing sounds: kindly, but somewhat malicious; sad, and somewhat gleeful. The malice is the kind of malice that doesn't have truck with human emotions, and things they're all rather fleeting experiences, silly, things that root, seeds, desire. The glee is the kind of glee that delights in chaos and sees something of that in Molly, laughing. The kindness is unfeigned. The sadness is constant: the sadness is tidal. The sadness is -- well, there are no tears, there is no throb, there is just knowledge as sure as Israel's piercing Sorrow, sure as the stones, as the bad things, the look in her dad's eyes that time, the moment after her old cabal scattered after the disaster once she knew hey no this is kind of it and you are alone.

So this -- gleeful: In the words of the TV Zen Master, ahh. Am I quiet or are you just deaf? I think I've got my phone on vibrate. You miss me, open up. Find me. In all senses.

And then ... Absence. That part of her the thing speaks from: it starts to go. She says it's like sleeping on her arm wrong, and it is, that's the perfect analogy, that's the way it is, except see, now some part of her is always going to be like that, and no amount of rubbing'll bring the tingle back and then from tingle life and pain and then movement.

That's what it's starting to feel like.

[Molly Quincannon] Hide and go seek. A game she has never really played, because it is a child's game and she had no friends. But then again, it is a game she has played every day of her life, one way or another.

There must be something wrong with her eyes if she's really that big on getting a closer look.
She has a flash drive, but nothing to read it on.
She is trying. But it doesn't seem to be getting her anywhere.
Try harder.

Why is she staying down here? Because she wants to know what's in the submarine, that's why. A part of her Self says that it's a bad idea ... but then, it always does, doesn't it?

On the other hand, hungry things and yellow submarines
we all live in a oh eff-eff-ess; seriously, WEEKS
are very specific things. They have walls. They have limits. And all they seem to be doing right now is keeping her down. And her chest is burning.

Fuck a bunch of this.
mollywhatthehellareyoudoing?
Trying Option Three.

Trying to get her bearings as best she can, she pushes off from the submarine and heads in the direction she's pretty sure, from what bearings she could take from the Lafette and the directions she's travelled in since (perfect memory for the win!), is up. She's looking to break for the surface. There's a whole world out there, in theory. Time to explore that, maybe.

[Molly Quincannon] [[*whimper*]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9)

[Molly Quincannon] [[The kind of Arete roll that's reserved for VULGAR WITH WITNESSES AND NO DAMN FOCI, THANK YOU.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 2 (Failure at target 7)

[Molly Quincannon] [[Stamina?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[E-en-gur-a] The submarine cracks beneath her feet when she pushes up. Her lungs ache. The ache is starting to go to her head. That part of her that's dead right now doesn't flex again. There's no sense of it. Still: up. That's her choice. [Ascend.] That's the direction she chooses. And she follows her gut, and her gut is any input she can get, dredging information in from current (? forces), location (? corresondence), once she thinks to apply it. Not conscious: let yourself go. Maybe she just follows the bubbles of her laughter. [She thinks they'd be there, doesn't she?]

And she does surface.

And this: water breaks over her head like drops of light, like a pane of glass, shattering, but illimuminated, briefly sparkly, and

No. The pixel ghost. He's not there. Not yet. Her iphone makes a weird sound. (Did she grab her iphone? Doesn't matter: it's apparently on her person. Did it explode or meet its demise in some awful way? Doesn't matter. Because it's apparently on her person.) Not the weird sound one would expect if it were breaking down, but an on-now sound, and then -- a song, Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, I don't care, I'm still free, a very familiar song. Take me out to the black tell them I ain't coming back. Tell them I ain't coming back. I ain't coming back. I ain't coming back. Coming back. Coming back. Coming back. Until she answers it.

Ah, but. There is much afoot beyond the water, break-through: air, breathable again. This is what she sees: a river bank, muddy; dark waters, Euphrates waters, waters that civilization might've teemed out've, signs of flooding, signs of walls she might've glimpsed in a documentary on the middle east at some point in her life, except they're not exactly crumbling the way they'd've been crumblng then.

There's a slick of something pale in the water, coiling around her, and she'll notice this: the water's thick, now -- viscuous; gooey. Likely not unfamiliar, although it'll take her a moment or two -- maybe a taste -- to actually get what it is. It: soon overtakes all of the 'normal' water, so the waves're running pale. Milky. Salty.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly isn't exactly a student of ancient mythologies, but she is curious, and has a memory, and got around a lot in her first year of college. She ended up hanging out with a bunch of students who were into ancient mythologies (though mainly as ways to get girls into bed; those, in point of fact, were the ones Molly didn't sleep with) and ... well, she got around a lot in her first year of college. She knows that taste. And she knows that there are a few very ancient religions that never drew a line between water and semen. Both gave life, after all...

Jinkies! A Clue!
...Is it?

But there is her iPhone ringing; she has many ringtones for many people, but she's never programmed that one into her phone. So she gets to shore, looks at her iPhone, now wet--
Water.
Semen.
Blood.
Stuff of Life, whatever, no fear, fear is the little death...

--and she stands in liquid up to mid-thigh, and looks to see if a name turns up on the screen, or a number, or something. Whether it does or doesn't, she answers the same: "SisterQ here; what's new and interesting?"

[E-en-gur-a] Molly's on the pill, right? The river 'water' gets into her clothes and is warm against her skin. The river 'water' is too thick to comfortably wade through but it does. Wouldn't that be a great trick? There's no reason to think that a trick's what's involved at all. The pixel ghost (the other voice [the internal monologue that isn't]) didn't seem particularly lacking in straightforwardness. Then again, he did finally decide to scrape out've the ether, to obviously interact with her, and now, now, he's said: hide and seek; come find. She swam; she broke the surface of the milky river, and if she looks very, very close at the river, she'll see stars in with the salt-semen.

There is a name on her iphone's display screen. The name is KUrg4rr4.

The voice that answers her is low, seems to be cobbled together of static electricity, of random (ancient) telephonic hiccups and stutters, and it has no gender, no sex, impossibly to say if a man is trying to speak or a woman is trying to speak. The voice says,

"M-Mad Maudlin? Y-you/ We-you are coming/c-come sing We are coming f-for/The Important Thing Is We Tried/f-for your gifts. Y-you s-stole - he was drunk - he wants them b-back. D-don't go looking."

[Molly Quincannon] He was drunk - he wants them back--
"..........Oh, shit."

Her name is not Juanita. She is not a cyber-prophet of the new age--
(Yes you are.)
--and she did not discover a wacked-out cult--
Well, not discovered exactly but what about freaky Albino dude worshipping that Sending?
--and neurolinguistic viruses are--
You have a flash drive.
--Enki's thing.
"..........Inanna. Sonuvachihuahua."

Then she shakes her head and turns her attention to the phone, looking back on the various Google searches she did after reading Snow Crash in the first place. Inanna ran. She took the me and ran back to a quay someplace. Except...

"Don't go looking for what?"
--Oh shit didn't the old legends say something about demons chasing?
...Don't care. Want to know what I shouldn't be looking for before I do or do not look for it.

[E-en-gur-a] The 'water' is rising, slowly but surely. Certainly not quickly enough to be a cause for alarm. As Molly talks on the phone, as Molly starts putting pieces into place, there's no change on the riverbanks. All those crumbling walls, all those old [ancient] cannals, and beyond that no hint of life. No hint which direction life'll be found.

"H-Him. / The Man. / who is not -- n-not [NOT] a / Don't d-do it. C-on/trol. Con Troll. Con Troll, Your Self. S-s-elf. / NOT a man. W-walk away."

[Molly Quincannon] [[Fuck it. Curiosity roll.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[E-en-gur-a] (*amused*)

[Molly Quincannon] There was a time when she wouldn't have bothered trying to pull away. When she would have stuck around no matter what, chased down the last link. But there's a question, another thing to think about: If you seek it out and die, you'll never find out what's on that flash drive. At least find a damn computer.
Yeah, but...
"Okay, the quays of Uruk aren't exactly on my GPS favourites tabs, y'know. I'm gonna have to improvise here." She looks behind her. "That or find the Lafette again. That'll be ... fun."
Can't go home again.
Except when you can.

[E-en-gur-a] "Y-you will / Will Leaf / l-leave - l-leaf thin bone? Good." Then: there is a click. The phone is dead and quiet and possibly broken in her hand, again. Behind her: more river. The Lafette is not anywhere within her line of sight. Of course, Molly is awake. She has way more senses than six.

[Molly Quincannon] Well, her phone wasn't broken to begin with (it had been attached to one of her computers, charging, in fact, not in the pocket in which she found it), and she had thought she wasn't 'awake' anymore. It's a thing that one gets surprisingly used to, doing what one can without the extra abilities.

She knows what she's looking for. She knows what she wants to find. She moves just a little forward (just to keep the rising water from potentially being an issue while she's not looking) and reaches for ... not so much the Lafette, exactly (though that's there too - the power that built it, the power that runs through it, the minds and Presences she knows are within it), but something more abstract: Home.

Yes, it's home. Fuck the pride thing, fuck the overdoing the independence thing because she's still overcompensating for stupid shit she went through a long time ago. The Lafette is home and she will find it and she will go back.

She has ferrets to feed.

[Molly Quincannon] [[Arete 8, and a WP blown. Woo?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 5 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]

[E-en-gur-a] This relatively easy way to reach through the world and place herself on the map of it -- well; it's trickier, today. Now. Harder. There is a part of her that just doesn't want to flex, just doesn't want to find (there's never a part of Molly that doesn't want to find [Curiousity's Cavalier]), but in the end, she manages to get a reading on the LaFette. The LaFette is:

Home. Shelter. Sanctuary.
A place of friends in hiding,
a place of friends in need,
a place where she --

A place where. The LaFette is under her feet. Under the river. Under the silt and the muck and the weeds that grow in the semen-river, the salt-way, the life-giving stream: it's buried deep, deep under all that, fortyfour miles down.

[Molly Quincannon] She's been told not to search.
Not to search further, anyway; you've got a thing, and it will contain things, and to find out what this thing contains, you have to--
But she's searched anyway. Just not for Him, whoever He is.
Not going to get greedy here; information requires reflection, processing, analysis; having it's worthless if you don't--
Instead, it's home, and it's far away, and it's through a lot of muck and...
Geronimoooooooooooo!

She dives. She barely gives it a moment's thought (that would only give her a chance to second-guess; she knows herself well) and while she takes a breath, it's to steel herself, not precisely for oxygen. This stuff she's going to be swimming through (fourtyfour miles down, great Google...) is life-giving and she didn't need much oxygen before; why now?

So she dives and she swims towards home, still holding fast to her acquired flash drive, the prospect of home (tenacity; the Little Search Engine That Could) and the contents of that flash drive (Curiosity; as above) driving her on.

[[Pause]]